We Want to be Just Like Everyone Else! -I Samuel 8

Sometimes we get what we want.  Other times, we don’t.  There are times and situations when we get what we want, but the consequences for getting what we want is nothing like what we expected.  We have a tendency to be rather shortsighted when it comes to our desires.  Most of the time, we believe that getting what we want will bring us happiness, fulfillment, and contentment.  That is, to a certain extent anyway, the nature of a desire, to fulfill a perceived need.  “Perceived” being the operative word here.

Israel, as we move through the Story of God’s good creation, has a perceived need.  Israel thinks she needs a king.  To this point in the story, from Abraham to the taking of the Promised Land, God has been Israel’s true King.  Or, at least, that has been the plan.  God has created for himself a people, a royal priesthood and a holy nation, through which God planned to bless the whole world, bringing about peace, reconciliation, and wholeness.  For her part, Israel has not lived up to the expectations.  Several times already, God has almost destroyed Israel so that God could begin again with a new set of characters. 

Israel’s continual testimony about God, though, is that God is steadfastly loyal and loving.  God is faithful even to the unfaithful.  God will not start new with another people, even when Israel rejects God.  No, God is faithful. 

Toward the end of the time of the Judges, Samuel is prophet and judge over Israel.  Samuel is a true man of God.  He is faithful, dispensing God’s word to the people of Israel.  If the story of the Judges teaches us anything, it is that Israel continually rejects God as their true King.  God, as Israel’s true King, was a good and just King.  God has freed Israel from slavery to Egypt so that she might serve him faithfully.  God has provided boundaries and rules for Israel to follow so that she might grow and prosper.  God has fought Israel’s battles for her so that she might be free from oppression.  God as King in Israel has provided for all of Israel’s needs.  God has fed her, clothed her, given her a land to live in, and generations of children.  God as true King in Israel has abundantly given so that Israel might live. 

Israel has a short memory, is stubborn to boot, and fails to believe that God as true King in Israel has her best interests in mind.  Israel’s pattern of rejecting God as King continues as they approach Samuel to ask for an earthly king.  Israel is once again rejecting God as King, but this time, they are asking to be just like everyone else (I Samuel 8:5). 

Samuel doesn’t want to give in to Israel’s demands, and I suppose, neither does God.  God gives Israel what she wants anyway.  Only, it is with a warning.  Samuel warns the people that a king will only ever take from Israel.  Israel’s assumption is that having a king like all the other nations of the world will be good for Israel.  They believe that a king will provide for them.  A king like all the other nations will keep them safe; fight their battles; and provide for them food, land, and shelter.  But Samuel and God both know that this assumption is a false one.  A king will only take. 

Despite the warning that Samuel gives, Israel insists on having a king.  So God leads Samuel to Israel’s first king. 

God gives Israel what she wants.  It isn’t what is best for Israel, but it is what Israel has chosen for herself.  Israel has had a perceived desire for a king.  But Israel already had a King, and she rejected him.  Israel thought that having a king like all the other nations would bring them happiness, fulfillment, and contentment, but it does not.  Even a quick reading of what follows from this particular point in the Story will reveal that most of Israel’s kings lead Israel on a path toward destruction.  Israel gets what she wants, but the results are nothing like she expected. 

What does this mean for us as Characters in this Story?  While we are not Israel, we are not a nation chosen by God; we are a people called by God.  As followers of Jesus Christ, we are subjects in the Kingdom of God.  Our true King is Jesus.  All too often, however, we demand that we have our own king just like everyone else.  We reject Jesus as our true King and place something else in his place.  We pay homage to the kings who only take, kings like money, power, sex, nationalism, and sport.  Perhaps most of the time, we bow to the only king we really want to serve, ourselves.  We reject Christ as our King and serve ourselves. 

We are not bound to follow in Israel’s footsteps.  You and I can listen to the warnings of Samuel.  We can remember the faithfulness of God our true King.  We can, with the power of the Holy Spirit, resist the temptation to serve kings who are not Jesus.  We can stand and declare, with boldness, “We will have no king but Christ!”